I cycled to work yesterday morning, and as ever I felt I was far safer and better off than had I been driving.
Overnight Plymouth had a lot of snow, but towards 05h00 we also had some drizzle, turning all the snow to slush and ice. For some obscure reason Plymouth City Council apparently did not think it necessary to grit the roads early this morning. That and the fact that I don’t believe Plymouth CC owns one single snow plough meant that even main arterial roads were reduced to two pairs of tyre tracks cutting through 10 to 15 cm of slush.
Very fortunately there seemed to be few cars out when I cycled in, and for the greater part it was a very nice ride.
I was splattered with slush a few times by cars overtaking me, but given the state of the roads I don’t think there was any way they really could have avoided doing so, so I didn’t mind.
Approaching the intersection between Ham drive and Outland road, one lunatic driver raced past me at a stupid speed. He gave me a wide berth, which I’m grateful for, but neither that nor his reckless speed is what made me remember him.
See, there was a grey-haired lady walking on the pavement, holding a little girl’s hand. The girl’s other hand was held by a huge man with biceps twice the size of my thigh muscles. And yes, they got absolutely coated in slush, about 50 meters before the intersection.
The giant of a man did not take kindly to that, and set off running after the car, which by now was stopped at the intersection, waiting to turn right. He was bellowing all sorts of pleasantries at the driver, who by now was nervously looking behind him.
The lights had changed to red just before the big man got to the car, and the driver decided that he’d rather take his chances skipping the red light than face up to a large, angry man. Fortunately the intersection was clear and he made it through without anything untoward happening to anybody.
We all learn our lessons in different ways, but I’m inclined to think that the idiot driver may just have learnt that splattering others with slush could be extremely bad for HIS health.
All truth be told, I wouldn’t particularly want to stand in the way of the big, muscular guy when he’s lost his rag either! Despite this, the entire incident had me chuckling quite a bit.
I spoke to the big guy for a little while, and we both agreed it was probably a good thing he didn’t get hold of the car driver. He then commented on the slush all over my panniers and my winter cycling tights and said he’d also have words with any car driver he spots splattering any cyclist with slush.
So there you have it: drive carefully in the slush else a huge angry man may just rip your car door off!